<topbar style="display:none;"> <item><a href="../index.html">Home</a></item> </topbar> <!-- This is a comment, it is ignored by the compiler/interpreter --> <style> h0 { font-family:; font-size: 30px; color: #414040; margin-top: 50px; margin-bottom: 6px; word-spacing: 5px; } </style> ##About me: Takeo Tokunari <br><img src="./takeo.png" alt="laser_module" width="800"/><br> ###Short description Hello! I am Takeo, a second-year graduate student in Master in Design Engineering Program at Harvard (Graduate School of Design + School of Engineering and Applied Sciences). A bit of my life in chronological order: <br> * Born in Kanazawa City, Japan * Got a BS in Chemistry and an MS in Isotope Geochemistry from Kanazawa University * Went to Kenya and spent 3.5 years working at a Nairobi-based environmental consulting firm * Went back to Kanazawa and joined a local, small company that develops biomass carbonization (pyrolysis) plants, bringing the technology back to Kenya and other countries in Africa * Came to Harvard to hone leadership to orchestrate diverse talents and techs for pragmatic sustainability * Love a cappella Because I believe in distributed but connected leaderhip to address complex social/environmental problems, and also because it often takes technological intervention to make a good intervention (or at least it seems possible), I am interested in learning about HTMAA and how all those global Fablab network operates. Looking forward to learning from you/making with you all! ###Much longer description <br> **Institutional status** <br> Second-year graduate student at the Master in Design Engineering (MDE) Program at Harvard University. It is a two-year program jointly offered by John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and Graduate School of Design (GSD). **Fabrication background** <br> In a one-year core class at MDE (called Design Engineering Studio) and another elective, I learned some (very) basic fabrication skills such as Arduino and 3D modeling with Fusion 360. My individual role was usually to ideate, strategize and lead the product development in collaboration with other team members with design or engineering background. Product concepts I created and co-developed with groups of four include (1) a webcam-like clip attached to a trash bin that gives you alert when edible food is thrown in, using computer vision and app, (2) an inner-body cooling jacket for construction workers, using a network of millimeter-scale fluidic channel surrounding the body for efficient heat transfer, and (3) paper-based microfluidic diagnosis kit for pregnant to detect the early symptoms of pregnancy-related diseases through urine test at home. Prior to matriculation to MDE, I was working with a small-scale manufacturing company. Again, I was rather the one who crystalizes the product concept than a designer or engineer by myself, but was leading (4) an early R&D of bio-toilet that does not require water for flushing, targeting rural India. Also, I was involved in the assembly, installation and operation of the pyrolysis plants that my company develops, requiring some degree of engineering knowledge. My academic background before Harvard is purely science (BS in Chemistry and MS in Isotope Geochemistry, both in Japan), without requiring engineering skills or knowledge. **Interest in taking the course** <br> I have been imagining, and working on achieving, a world where talents are decentralized but connected, working on important local issues often linked to the global systems. I believe it is possible by (A) activating their entrepreneurship mindset and skills, (B) equipping them with design thinking mindset and (C) enabling them to actually make things they want to make, while (D) maintaining and cultivating their leadership to face important social issues. It is an opposite of what we see today (= there are handful of tech giants that make everything for us and talents crowd in to these companies in the same metropolitans; later many of them become more and more unsure if that is the right thing to do in their life). I think (C) is an absolutely necessary foundation of (B) and (A), and therefore I am interested in taking this course. Throughout my career to date, I have been leading initiatives to tackle global environmental/social problems, with a key question to myself: how we could make a lasting and scalable social impact in marginalized areas. After getting an MS in my hometown, an isolated local city in Japan, I went to Kenya and spent 3.5 years working with a Nairobi-based environmental consulting firm. After that I went back to my hometown and started working with Meiwa Co., Ltd., a local, small company that manufactures a series of environmental plants such as industrial dust collectors, wastewater treatment plants, and biomass carbonization plants. I was leading its first overseas department for 4.5 years to bring its biomass carbonization plants back to Kenya and other countries in Africa (and some others in Asia) to enable local people to convert their under-utilized biomass residue into their own solution (= agricultural charcoal that saves crops from drought and nutrient deficiency). It took us several years but I could see the small but tangible impact in rural areas in Kenya ([here](https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=3076791382375079&set=a.193957780658468 "Biochar on coffee")), created as the result of collaboration between them and the domestic, small tech company from my hometown. During such journey, 50+ postgraduate interns from 10+ African countries, truly talented and with vision, came to my company for internship, believing that they can be a leader to do the same thing in their own countries. The challenge is that there were hardly any infrastructure/facility to fabricate the plants or even the maintenance parts to sustain and replicate the projects. As I lead a student social venture at Harvard/MIT ([here](https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2021/03/buzzworthy-solution "SEAS article about Planet Bee")), I have encountered the same problem in the Amazon Forest; it does not make much sense to fabricate and deliver technologies if there is nobody who can sustain or adapt them on site. I started wondering: what if this bottleneck can be removed by enabling access to ubiquitous digital fabrication? How exciting it could be if engineers in Meiwa and Botswana, for instance, could collaborate to co-develop and deliver the solution together while distant from each other? What if many other small-scale tech companies like Meiwa could do the same without hiring more human resources? I am intending to pursue this theme for my master’s project (Independent Design Engineering Project: IDEP) at MDE. I am potentially interested in helping open new fablabs in my hometown and other geographically distanced areas such as Botswana, deep inside the Amazon, etc. <br><img src="./new_venn.png" alt="laser_module" width="800"/><br>